


Checkmate

by NachoDiablo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Avengers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Jealous Bucky Barnes, M/M, Pining Bucky Barnes, Pretend Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Secret Admirer, Steve Rogers is a little shit, Steve in Glasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 01:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NachoDiablo/pseuds/NachoDiablo
Summary: Steve has a secret admirer. Bucky’s reluctant to admit that it’s him.Then Sam beats him to it.





	Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roe87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roe87/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "secret admirer" for [Bottom Bucky Fest](https://hellyeahbottombucky.tumblr.com).

Nat grins at Steve as he walks into the forty-sixth floor den at Avengers Tower. She’s draped across one of the loveseats with a tablet in her hands. Bucky isn’t facing her, but he’s had the entire room on scan out of the corner of his eye since he sat down. Force of habit. 

“Those flowers look nice, Rogers. Who’re they from?” 

Bucky looks up from where he’s been playing chess with Sam. Steve’s holding a small bouquet of white gardenias, tied together with a simple red ribbon. Gardenias had been a favorite of Steve’s mother; Bucky had remembered that only yesterday.

Steve grins and ducks his head. “No note,” he says. “They just showed up on my kitchen counter here at the tower.”

“Wow,” Sam said dryly. “How do you suppose they got there? FRIDAY been letting creepers onto your floor?”

Bucky fixes him with a glare. He fights very hard to keep his boot from darting out to slam against Sam’s foot.

Steve shrugs. “No idea. FRIDAY says there’ve been no security breaches, but I can’t get any additional details. She’s being surprisingly sparse with the intel.”

A small sigh of relief slips from Bucky’s lips. He is thrilled to be living in a future with ceiling robots, but he still isn’t sure how much they can be trusted with private information. It’s nice to know that at least Stark’s A.I. has manners, even if he doesn’t.

“You’ve been getting a lot of presents lately,” Natasha muses. “Flowers, candy, croissants, that fillet knife.”

Bucky lets his gaze dart over to Natasha’s loveseat. She looks bored, but one corner of her mouth is turned slightly upward. A small scowl mars his expression. It’s not a fillet knife, it’s a hunting knife, and Natasha knows this. She is deliberately attempting to irritate him.

“Looks like you’ve got a secret admirer,” she adds lightly.

Not attempting, Bucky corrects himself. Succeeding.

Steve shakes his head, but there’s a blush blooming on his cheeks. “I don’t think so. All of the gifts have been left on my floor here, not at my apartment. No one other than the team or staff could have gotten in, not with Happy’s security upgrades.”

Nat narrows her eyes. “And you really can’t think of  _ anyone _ on the team or staff who would have left them?”

Bucky presses his lips together and holds his breath. He quietly moves a rook two spaces to the left.

“No,” Steve says. He wrinkles his forehead in confusion. “I can’t think of anyone.”

Sam sighs loudly. He exchanges a pained glance with Natasha. “Alright, that’s enough.” He pushes his chair back and stands up, shoulders squared. 

“I’ll fess up. It was me. You and I have been friends for a while now and I… uh, I just… I’m feeling something deeper, so I… sent you a knife. And flowers. Because I’m into you. Romantically.”

Bucky’s jaw drops. What the hell is Sam doing? He’s  _ lying.  _ Sam’s not the one who’s been leaving the gifts, it’s  _ Bucky _ who has been carefully selecting items for Steve and leaving them around. Hell, Sam isn’t even lying  _ well, _ not with how stiff he’s standing, and how awkward his phrasing is, and the way he keeps shooting little glances over at Bucky.

Bucky has half a mind to call Sam out, but his tongue sticks in his throat. The only way that Bucky could prove that Sam’s lying is if he confesses the truth. 

Yeah. That’s not going to happen.

Bucky had hoped that a little incognito wooing would give him the courage to tell Steve how he feels. In reality, every private smile and soft blush that graces Steve’s face after he finds a new gift only makes Bucky more nervous. What if Steve suspects the truth, but he hasn’t said anything because he doesn’t want to hurt Bucky’s feelings by telling him he doesn’t feel the same way? What if Steve hasn’t suspected the truth because he’d never thought of Bucky romantically in the first place? 

Or what if Steve’s been hoping the gifts were sent by someone else? Someone like Sam?

The room is silent for a long minute. Bucky can hear Natasha sigh loudly, though he himself doesn’t take a single breath. Eventually, Steve clears his throat.

“Wow,” he says quietly. “Um… thank you?”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Sam mutters. “I know you’re not interested, but--”

“Whoa, whoa,” interrupts Steve. “Who says I’m not interested?”

_ “Excuse _ me?” 

Bucky it startled to hear his own thoughts spoken aloud. He’s even more startled when he realizes it was Natasha who voiced them.

Steve shrugs as a slow, goofy grin spreads across his face. “I don’t know. Maybe I  _ am _ interested. Or, I could be.” His eyes flickered up and down Sam’s frame. “Why don’t we go out tonight and find out?”

Steve’s voice is an octave lower than usual, thick and honey sweet. Bucky wants to scream. Instead, he digs his fingernails into his palms and stays silent.

“Are you… you’re for real, right now?” Sam sounds incredulous. He chuckles and shakes his head when Steve raises one eyebrow and smirks in return. “Alright, man. You’re on. Let’s do this.”

_ “Excuse _ me?” This time Bucky voices his own thoughts before he can stop himself.

Sam turns to Bucky and gives him a challenging look. “What’s wrong, Barnes? You got something to say?”

Three pairs of eyes meet Bucky’s own. He fights to keep his breathing steady and his expression blank. “Nope. Nothing.” He turns to face Sam. “Have fun tonight.” He looks back down at the chessboard and moves his rook to capture Sam’s king.

Sam’s scowl almost makes Bucky laugh. 

Almost.

\- - - - - - -

“Do you think Sam’ll be okay with burgers?” 

Bucky looks up from the magazine he’s not reading. He’s hunched up on Steve’s bed, leaning against the headboard. They’re back in their apartment, the place they call home. Bucky and Steve only stay in the tower when they have missions or training; most of the time, they’re holed up in their little Park Slope apartment, like regular folks.

Bucky furrows his brow. “You two go out for burgers all the time. Why wouldn’t he be okay with that?”

“I dunno,” Steve says. He squints into the mirror over his dresser and raises a hand to ruffle his hair a bit. “I don’t want to do the same old thing we do every time we hang out. This is a  _ date, _ Buck. It’s gotta be special.”

Bucky isn’t sure how to respond, so he chooses to silently judge Steve’s outfit choice instead. Unfortunately, Steve’s dark jeans and v-neck shirt, both stretched tight across all his best attributes, don’t do much to quell the less-than-platonic rumbling in Bucky’s stomach. 

“So,” Bucky says in what he hopes is a casual tone. “You and Wilson, huh?”

“We’ll see,” Steve said. “You okay with that?”

Bucky chews on his lower lip. “It’s… I’m okay. Just came outta nowhere, is all.”

The first part might be a lie, but the second part isn’t. Bucky hasn’t known Steve to go out on a date in this century. He’s not sure what Steve got up to before the Potomac incident, but ever since they’ve been reunited, Bucky has been well informed of Steve’s whereabouts, and they’ve never been far off from his own.

That’s not to say Steve’s been stifling him, either. Steve’s always been courteous of Bucky’s autonomy. They’re just together more often than not, by mutual choice.

Still, in all the time that Bucky and Steve have lived together, Steve’s never shown any indication of wanting to start a romantic relationship with someone, though Bucky’s sure he’d have no problems striking one up, if the daily barrage of Cap thirst on Twitter is any indication. Therefore, he feels justified that his skepticism won’t raise any red flags of jealousy for Steve.

“Well…” Steve reaches up to rub the back of his neck, which has gone extremely pink. Bucky peers at Steve’s reflection in the mirror, but his eyes are focused intently down at the dresser top. “It’s uh… not exactly outta nowhere.”

Bucky holds his breath as Steve hunches, then straightens his shoulders before continuing. “When I first met Sam, back when I moved down to D.C., I, uh… kinda had a thing for him.”

The rumbling in Bucky’s stomach churns itself into a painful knot. “You and Wilson… you were… did you…”

The words won’t come out, but Steve gets the gist. He whips around to face Bucky, eyes wide as he shakes his head furiously back and forth.

“No! No, we never… “ Steve flashes a lopsided smile. “He’s a good looking guy, and we hit it off. Treated me like Steve, not Cap. We got to flirting a little but, uh, never sealed the deal. And then  _ you _ came back, so of course that was the end of things. But… maybe the timing is better now.”

Bucky’s not sure how to process that last comment. He’s too relieved to hear that Steve and Sam haven’t hooked up. Yet.

He averts his eyes and picks at a piece of lint on Steve’s bedspread. “Don’t you think it might be weird? Dating a friend?”

“Why would that be weird?” The softness in Steve’s voice makes Bucky look up to meet his gaze. “If two people already care about each other as friends, it’s an easy leap to something different. I think it’d be nice, to have that type of relationship foundation. Would you… don’t you agree?”

Steve’s positively scarlet now, but his eyes are still bright as they flicker over Bucky’s face. Bucky chews on his lower lip again. Of  _ course _ he agrees, so long as the friends in question are Steve and himself. Steve and Sam are a different story.

He huffs out a small sigh. “Yeah,” he says in a voice just above a whisper. “I agree.”

The sunny grin on Steve’s face only makes the knot in Bucky’s stomach twist tighter.

\- - - - - - -

Bucky sighs as the clock on Sam’s microwave flashes 11:00. When he had first slipped through Sam’s window and settled in on the couch, it had been 8:16, one hour and sixteen minutes after Steve had left their apartment for the date. He hasn’t moved a muscle since then, except to let his eyes flit back and forth between the front door and the microwave.

It’s been three hours and thirty minutes since the start of the cursed date. That’s too long for a bad date, and toeing the line between a good date and a  _ really _ good date. Bucky’s nerves are on edge.  He’s spent the last two hours and forty four minutes torturing himself with thoughts of all the sickeningly adorable things Steve and Sam might be doing at that farm-to-table gastropub that makes the ketchup on their overpriced burgers from scratch.

_ And then you came back, so of course that was the end of things. _

What had Steve meant by that? Why had Bucky’s return stopped Steve from pursuing Sam romantically? A small spark of hope has been flickering in Bucky’s chest, but he’s been diligently snuffing it out.

Steve could not possibly mean  _ Bucky  _ is what’s keeping him from dating _ , _ could he?

Bucky jumps as the front door lock clicks. The door swings open and Sam slides in silently. He closes and locks the door, then drops his keys onto the side table and leans against the doorjamb with a sigh. His goofy grin is eerily similar to the one that pops onto Steve’s face when Bucky makes waffles on Sunday mornings.

He’s also got a rumpled shirt, nibbled lips, and an unzipped fly. A low growl rumbles from Bucky’s throat. Sam gasps and turns to face him, arms up in a defensive stance. He lets out an exaggerated sigh when he spots Bucky.

“The hell are you doing here?” Sam groans as he leans back against the door. “Tryna give me a coronary, I swear to God, Barnes, one of these days--”

“Where’s Steve?” Bucky hisses. “He’s supposed to be here!” 

Sam folds his arms across his chest and cocks one eyebrow. “Why is Steve supposed to be in my apartment?”

Bucky scowls. He’s not sure how to succinctly say, “because Steve’s too much of a gentleman to bring a date home to our apartment when he thinks I’m there, so he’d obviously come back here for all the hot, swealy loving that you two assholes are so clearly going to engage in while I die a little inside, except apparently Steve couldn’t wait that long and dragged you into the nearest available alley instead and now I really  _ am _ dying  _ a lot _ inside.” Instead he grits his teeth and spits out, “How was your  _ date?” _

The goofy grin is back again. Bucky wants to throw up.

“It was good,” Sam says. His smile spreads into a wicked grin.  _ “Real _ good. Why do you ask?”

Part of Bucky wants to smack the smile off Sam’s face. A bigger part of him likes Sam too much to seriously consider it. And the biggest, dumbest part of him screams with pain at the knowledge that Sam and Steve really  _ do _ fit well together and will probably have a long, happy, rewarding relationship.

Sam bursts into laughter. Bucky blinks in confusion as Sam walks over and claps him on the shoulder. “Man, you are too easy. Look at your face!” He flops down onto the couch next to Bucky, grabs the remote, and flips on HBO. “You watch Westworld yet? It’s wild.”

Bucky’s completely lost. “I… what are you… what did you…”

Sam pauses the Westworld episode mid-credits. “Nothing happened. Dumbass.”

Bucky’s jaw drops. He looks down at Sam’s crotch to reassess the zipper situation. Sam scowls and reaches down to zip it up.

“Eyes up here, Romeo. Look, Steve and I had dinner, but that’s it. The little shit played us both.”

“What?” Bucky bristles at Sam’s accurate characterization of Steve. “What do you mean?”

“Steve knew I was messing with him,” Sam explains. “He saw me… it doesn’t matter what he saw. He knows I’m already seeing someone, so I couldn’t be his secret admirer.”

“Who are you seeing?” Bucky asks. Sam ignores his question.

“He only asked me out to fuck with me. And you.”

Bucky inhales sharply. “He knows?”

Sam smiles, gently this time. “Why don’t you ask him? He was headed home when we left dinner. He’s probably waiting for you.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand?” Sam asks bluntly. “After dinner, Steve went home, I went out and got some. I suggest you get out of here and do both.” He leans back and unpauses the TV. “You’re always welcome to watch Westworld with me, if you--”

Bucky is out the window before Sam finishes his undoubtedly snarky remark.

\- - - - - - -

Bucky creeps soundlessly into their apartment. The lights are all off, save the one in Steve’s bedroom, which streams into the hallway through the open door. Bucky makes his way to the doorway and peers in. Steve is in bed, back propped up against his pillows, Kindle in hand. He’s dressed in a tight tshirt and Bucky’s cloud-print pajama pants, and his dorky reading glasses are perched on his nose. Bucky feels his insides melt into a gooey puddle. He takes a deep breath, gathers his courage, and knocks on the doorframe.

“Hey, Buck! Where you been?” Steve’s smile widens as he places his Kindle on the bedside table.

Bucky hesitates. He walks over to the bed, and sits down gingerly on the edge. He flounders for something clever to say, but comes up empty. Instead, he blurts out, “It was me. But I guess you figured that out.”

Steve ducks his head and chuckles. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Steve chews on his lip, then reaches out to run his fingers across Bucky’s. “I didn’t want to push you. I wanted you to tell me when you were ready.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “They why’d you ask Wilson on a date?”

The shit eating grin on Steve’s face makes Bucky’s heart stutter. “I could tell you were hanging on by a thread. Figured you might need a little encouragement.” He laces their fingers together and gives Bucky’s hand a squeeze.

“You fuckin’ punk.” Bucky scoots over to get closer to Steve. Without quite knowing how it happens, he finds himself straddling Steve, hands cupped around his face. Steve’s lips are chapped but soft as they brush against Bucky’s, and Bucky wastes no time in diving in for more.

When they part, Steve sighs in satisfaction and gives Bucky's hips a squeeze. He nudges their noses together. “I love you, jerk. Consider me wooed good and proper.”

Bucky snorts derisively. “You’re such a nerd. But I love you, too.” He frowns, and taps the frame of Steve’s glasses. “Why are you wearing these, anyway? You don’t need ‘em.”

“I don’t,” Steve says with a smirk, “but you like me in ‘em. I’ve had to do my share of wooing too, you know.”

“Like it’s hard,” Bucky snarks. “I like you in everything.”

“Is that so?” Steve’s hands slide down to cup Bucky’s ass. “You think you’d like me in nothing, too?” His words are smooth, but his pink cheeks are what make Bucky’s pulse quicken. He leans in for another kiss, fingers ghosting under the hem of Steve’s tshirt.

“Only one way to find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did a drabble with a similar premise for Happy Steve Bingo where Bucky doesn't hold his tongue when Sam confesses, you can read that [here](https://samstevebuckyhq.tumblr.com/post/178540816854/fill-14-for-happystevebingo-rated-g).
> 
> Thank you for reading! You can find me on [Dreamwidth](https://nachodiablo.dreamwidth.org/), [Tumblr](https://samstevebuckyhq.tumblr.com/), and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nachodiablo1).
> 
> Rebloggable post can be found [here](https://samstevebuckyhq.tumblr.com/post/183359042871/checkmate-by-nachodiablo).


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